February 18, 2025 • 27 mins
Unjustified negativity has funny ways of rebounding right back at you.
'The Lucky Country' by Donald Horne is a a subjective snapshot of Australian life in the 1960's. Donald creates a depiction of the average person, our way of life, relation to other countries (especially Asia) and the political landscape. He is rather scathing when taken as a whole but seems relatively balanced when talking about minutiae topics.
If you got value from the podcast please provide support back in any way you best see fit!
Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:03) Themes/Questions
(00:19:01) Author & Extras
(00:22:46) Summary
(00:24:37) Value 4 Value
(00:25:20) Join Live!
Connect with Mere Mortals:
Website: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcasts/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcasts
Value 4 Value Support:
Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcasts.com/support
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyrin Down (00:00):
Unjustified negativity has funny ways of rebounding right back at you.
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Mere Mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 02/19/2025,
(00:21):
'11 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday. Would love if you come join me sometime.
As you might surmise, this is a podcast where I heap wonderful praise on the best country on Earth, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi. You know, in fact, I actually probably will be doing a bit of that today, but our our book for today
certainly is not gonna be because we have the lucky country by Donald Horne. This book was published in 1964,
(00:48):
'2 hundred and '40 '7 pages in length. Took me about five hours of reading to get through. It's not actually that big in in total.
Now this is a rather subjective
snapshot
is,
descriptive, I guess you would call it, turns into opinion
on Australian life in the nineteen sixties. So mister Horn, Donald, he creates a depiction of the average person, of their way of life, of the cities, of the countryside, the type of people within
(01:15):
it, and,
our relation to other countries, especially Asia, but also, you know, our ancestors back in the good old England,
as well as our our brethren in in America.
And I guess the political landscape as a whole, he also dives into quite a lot. He's rather scathing,
when you
(01:36):
take him as a whole, but,
he has some, I I think, some pretty detailed nuances and minutiae where he seems relatively fair and balanced. How many chapters do we have in total here? I'm seeing 10 with titles like the Australian dream, what is an Australian, senses of difference, living with Asia, men at work, men in power, forming opinions, the lucky country, etcetera, etcetera. And these are subdivided into, like, little mini,
(02:01):
areas as well.
So let's jump on to the main themes and questions. How to describe Australia? Do the leaders of a country determine its fate? What is the political landscape in Australia?
Let's just start with the, I guess, the order that the book actually goes in. And so
I feel that the start of this book is a really
(02:22):
good description of Australia.
Not only in that time, I didn't get to experience it, so I can't tell that for sure, but also of Australian life now and Australians now. So
laid back living the dream,
is I guess, the the summary of it. Everybody wants a fair go. They're kind of willing to clap, cut some slack to people who are trying hard,
(02:43):
yet even if they are incompetent,
naive to some extent about the harsher realities
of other people, of other countries, of life there, and and how lucky we actually have it here. I think that's still probably
fair to say.
He tends to have some nice quotes. I've actually noticed this, in the book.
He's got these rather, like, pithy one liners, which I I feel,
(03:05):
work pretty well. So for example, he had one here, which was, hell has been a polish, hell has been abolished as unfair to underdogs, which is this kind of mentality that we have, about loving underdogs,
and and how and the kind of religious nature.
With context to that, he talks about how the only real
(03:26):
area that Australians are competitive in is in sport, which I feel is
pretty well,
still this still true to this day.
A whole lot on the fair go mentality
as contrasted to something like tall poppy syndrome,
which for those who don't know, tall poppies,
some poppies, a type of plant that grows in Australia. And if one grows above the rest, you know, it sometimes get cut. And this is an analogy,
(03:52):
allegory allegory, probably not,
to people who, you know, try and be too cool in Australia. They try and pretend they're better than others, even if they are perhaps are,
and that they'll get cut the knees,
which whilst is a a thing that gets talked about, I actually don't think actually really happens that much on it. We do seem to embody more of this fair go mentality.
(04:14):
The balance of just how he described Australia, the way that we interact with it with each other and things like this, I feel is is pretty good.
After this, he goes,
through the people. He goes through location
and culture. So
he tries to describe the differences between the cities, you know, classic Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth,
(04:35):
and Darwin,
are the main ones. He doesn't really touch upon the states,
per se, and the territories.
Tasmania, Hobart,
adding in there as well. And the thing whilst he does try and create descriptions of them, I think it's a hard thing to do, because Australians are relatively uniform. And here's the sum up at the end, which rings true. Despite extraordinary differences, its people are so much the same.
(05:03):
I feel that's rather the case as well.
And you can even see this within,
some subtle things such as our accents.
If you've been on the mere models conversations before, and I've done one with Pete Smithson,
he is much more of like a Australian history aficionado,
sort of guy and also deeply into languages much like myself. And, he has talked about on there why that there's actually no real differences between the Australian
(05:33):
slang and
and accent between cities. And it's more actually a class based thing. And you'll notice it between people who live in the country versus the city or people who come from a wealthy neighborhood compared to a poorer one.
And so,
you know, I personally wouldn't be able to tell if someone is from a different city just based on their accent. That that is not a thing that happens.
(05:56):
He touches upon many topics of sensitivity with, I think, a fair yet firm touch. So, for example,
religion, the importance that plays and I suppose the lack of importance that even was starting to happen back in his day, the way we work, women's roles in society as well as in the home.
Australia's
treatment of Aborigines, for example, was poor but
(06:19):
not genocidal.
If you compare it to other countries and and how
other colonizers have treated their the native population.
We lack nuance of Australia's diversity, yet admits there is kind of no consensus upon
how Australia,
Australia is
with regards to Asia and the Asian countries immigration.
(06:41):
All of these topics, I feel
he not only describes how it was, but also his opinions on them. And it and it seemed reasonable. He just seemed like a reasonable guy when it came to all of those things.
Then we jump into, I suppose, the more subjective opinion.
And so I would have said the the whole start was pretty descriptional. And you've got a fair idea of that. I'm an Australian.
(07:05):
I'm kind of embody it. If you listen to one as well, I feel like, you know, you just listen to a bit of us and you'll get a bit of an idea of what Australians are like.
Here I am literally with my, you know, scarf on my head,
looking like a fool and not taking a book review too seriously. I feel like that's pretty, indicative of how Australians are.
(07:27):
His subjective opinion,
gets into, I suppose, sketchy areas,
which are much more
how he viewed the world. And when it comes to politics,
people lose their fucking mind and say stupid things or they get very fired up and
lose perhaps some of the nuance that they have when it comes to more descriptional things that they don't have
(07:51):
a a part in or have no, you know, what's the differences between Brisbane and Adelaide? You know, there's no anger, there's no emotion, there's no feelings contained within that. You can be a bit more objective.
Yet when it gets into politics, you know, people just lose their mind.
And politics was a lot on his mind. He complains a lot, and it's hard to know whether if it was valid or not.
(08:13):
You know? Because if when you're complaining about a politician,
are you complaining about them and the way they're running their the country?
Do do their actions actually have that much import on this on the on the way a country actually
is run? Or are they more a sentiment and an indication of what the country at large is kind of feeling?
(08:34):
And they're just an an embodiment of that, for example. So
for example, a couple of things he was saying,
statements that were lacking behind other
industrialized nations in GNP. I guess that was gross natural,
gross
natural product. So, national gross national,
product. Nowadays, I think we say GDP, gross domestic product,
(08:59):
and that these the amount spent on education
or the two teacher to student ratio is too low. So making very, you know, policy decisions saying this is wrong. We need to fix this, and this is why Australia is
not going to do good or things like this. These I can all understand,
but the general moping
is,
(09:22):
I don't know, of of how people are of
there's
he it's it's weird because he's he's complaining about one on one hand, he's saying it's the lucky country. Australia is really good in certain regards where
we've we've actually, you know, our standard of living is really great,
(09:43):
especially when you compare it to, Asia.
And I'll get on to why he says it's we kind of don't deserve it shortly.
But then at the same time, he's complaining that the politicians are doing all these bad things, and it's like, well, which one is it? Is it are we are we doing well? Are we not doing well? I guess you could argue that he was saying we're not going to do well. And he kind of has a little bit of this within the book.
(10:09):
And I think this is where you can actually see that he was rather wrong because our standard of living is
certainly better than it was back then.
You know, people
have access to amenities and things that don't exist
back in that time. And we're still a rather prosperous nation. And, I I think he would have predicted that we wouldn't be unless
(10:32):
the radical changes or perhaps even were they radical changes that he was advocating for? Nah. Not not particularly. But the changes that he was advocating for, I would say, probably haven't come true, yet we're still rather prosperous. So,
he also talked a lot about communists, unionists,
not in a positive light. There was just many sections in this book where he was talking about
(10:55):
random,
Australian stuff. Menzies,
the Menzies government, the Menzies prime minister,
was certainly on his mind a lot as well. So
the thing that I really noticed within this was
he had this
there was this inkling, this undertone of wishing for an ivory tower,
and a strong leader to appear. And this is despite him already saying that Australians
(11:21):
are well represented of,
role well represented
represented? Jesus. I'm adding extra ads on politically per capita as in we have more politicians
than
other countries do, which
me personally, I I don't think that's a great thing, but,
per capita, but whatever.
He some of the other things he describes as a backwater without
(11:44):
intellectuals have only started to see some men of will,
who could shape the world as in these men who
he he would was sort of saying, like, they have the drive to change things. They have the drive to,
you know, innovate, to become powerful, to,
to change the world, I guess, in an essence. And,
(12:05):
I think all of this culminates in his famous paragraph, which we find in the in the last chapter here. So if you bear with me,
and it's it's rather scathing, scathing. And it's funny, this this paragraph,
I'll read it, and then I'll I'll I'll talk about something about it. So the lucky country living on our luck.
Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on the other people's ideas. And although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders in all fields so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise. A nation more concerned with styles of life than with achievement has managed to achieve what may be the most evenly prosperous society in the world. It has done this in a social climate largely inimical to originality
(12:52):
and the desire for excellence, acceptance, sport, and in which there is less and less acclimation of hard work. According to the rules, Australia has not deserved its good fortune.
Particularly that first line there, you might be thinking like, Jesus, he's just calling out the whole country.
And it's hard to
exactly pass it. Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. Now, is he talking specifically about the leaders there? I Australia is run the people who are running it a second rate?
(13:23):
Or is he talking about that the Australians as a whole a second rate? It's kinda hard to to pass that between those two.
What he argues in the book is that we don't deserve it. He actually doesn't talk much about the natural resources in terms of that being our luck, which
I think would probably be
if you'd look at the last sixty years, you know, we didn't experience
(13:46):
a recession during the GFC, I don't believe,
because we
basically just mined enough ore and coal,
iron ore to
to,
you know, paper over any any problems that would have happened to us had we been another country.
And certainly our resources is what has,
(14:08):
what we're kind of known for. You know, we've got a ridiculous amount of mining. I'm personally
am a mining engineer or used to be used to work in that. So,
but he doesn't talk about that much in the book. He just talks about that
we
aren't innovative. We don't create things.
And yet somehow we've managed to
(14:29):
create a society where people can go by the beach, where they don't have to work ninety hour work weeks, where
you can be incompetent. And yet as long as you're trying, you'll still get a fair go and a fair shake of it and these sorts of things.
I love this part about the stealing and innovation and, that we're just stealing ideas from other countries. We were literally China before China. You're welcome, China. We we invented that playbook, LOL.
(14:56):
So
I guess to sum up this, are politicians and leaders important? Do they run the country? Are they the ones who actually impact things?
Here here once again is my opinion.
No, I don't think so. And
to
kind of prove this in a sense,
being political here is an option.
(15:17):
We don't wear party hats.
We don't if you see signage outside of a person's house when it's coming up to an election day or something like that,
it's
it's
more mostly based on the party, not on the person itself,
or it'll be for local sorry. It'll be for more like a local MP
(15:38):
rather than on the party itself. You know, vote for this guy rather than vote for the party. We've got those backs, switched back.
It's not a topic that is forced upon you. You can choose to not get involved and you won't face social repercussions for this. I actually met someone recently who she says that whenever she,
a political discussion comes up and,
(16:00):
and someone asked her opinion or something, she'll just be like, I like kittens,
which I which I think is actually a pretty good
response. I might steal that.
When we have elections, they are not a set in stone date like the American ones where it's a big hullabaloo and, you know,
a big lead up a media event to it.
(16:21):
I personally have
gone many years without knowing who the prime minister is. I actually got it wrong recently when I looked it up because I thought it was an older one and it's actually a different one.
It reminds me of an disagreement I had with an Argentinian woman once
here in Australia,
and she thought I was being reckless
for not giving a fuck about politics here. You know, I was I was pretty much expressing this opinion. You don't need to know about it. It doesn't really matter.
(16:49):
You know,
it's the differences between voting for this person or this person. It's
it's largely irrelevant.
And her argument was that, you know, giving a giving a fuck was important. Otherwise, it would turn into something like her country is.
And if you don't know Argentina,
notorious
for
(17:09):
the poor politicians, the bribery scandals,
shout out to President Malay, who just,
is
being investigated for fraud for promoting a meme coin in the last couple of days. So, you know, nothing has changed. Don't trust politicians. You know, all the all the standard things that I've been saying for years.
(17:30):
And
my, you know, counter response to that is, you know, if giving a fuck is
really working well, you know, does it actually matter? Has it improved your political system? I would say no. And
probably that I win the argument by default because she was trying to immigrate to my country
and I wasn't trying to immigrate to hers. So,
(17:51):
you know, as far as I can tell,
they don't really do much here. Politicians
that the
perhaps because we don't attach to them a whole lot of weight as a whole. You know, no one's looking towards the Australian prime minister and is like, what's he going to do about tariffs? So what's he going to do about this? Or if they are, it's a certain subset. And it's
(18:14):
it's just not a huge thing. Politics,
I think rightly so, should be a
secondary consideration and that
decisions in your own life are much more important than whatever other people
are dictating in elsewhere.
Plenty of people who would argue against me off this, I know, but this is my opinion and there it is. So, let's jump into the author, perhaps some extra details. You know, did I answer, I guess, the initial question of,
(18:42):
do the leaders of a country determine its fate?
I feel in Australia, it's it's more that
they are an indication or the sentiment of what perhaps people as a whole are feeling and
that,
no, they don't they don't really determine its fate.
My personal opinion there. Let's remember the author. Extra details. Mister Horne is a journalist, writer, social critic and academic.
(19:05):
The public intellectual.
Perhaps he wouldn't have described himself this way. I believe he passed away in the last decade or two.
But if it does get applied to you,
then it's probably just.
And it does explain his moaning about intellectual life as I don't think he got the props that he thought he deserved.
(19:27):
I I feel that I got a strong feeling from that. He was moaning about the lack of public intellectual life in Australia that were not well read that were, you know,
lacking in ideas and creativity and things like this.
I think a lot of that was just because he believes he was,
and that he wasn't getting this.
(19:47):
To back up this claim,
he wrote three to five autobiographies.
Fucking five.
Three, I think, kind of really centered upon himself, maybe five in in total.
Now, apparently, they're not all me, me, me,
but, I mean, three is rather excessive. If you can't find a way of writing about
(20:09):
a topic without using yourself in it as a as a central figure and just three
to five autobiography. So that gives this necessary.
I think that was kind of an indication of him himself.
And he seemed like a man who also
didn't know exactly what he wanted because he did go to live in England for a while. And apparently
(20:31):
there, you know, even though the public and intellectual life should be rather stimulating,
it it he wasn't enjoying it there probably once again because he didn't make a name for himself there. Now the lucky country, there's getting to the very first thing I was saying, has actually become a term of endearment for Australia. And it's used in a good sense
(20:51):
as in, you know, we are the lucky country. We are
Australia is a great place to be.
Whereas in the way that he used it, and particularly in that final sentence, it was meant to be an insult. You know, it's a lucky country. You you don't deserve what you got here.
And that,
that could change and that everything could turn bad and you should listen to heed my warning sort of deal. And, apparently, this caused a lot of consternation for him. A quote here. I've had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase. And this was, of course because
(21:26):
he he probably said that, in the early two thousands.
I can only feel this is calmer, to be honest. I feel the descriptions in this book were rather accurate,
as he was writing it at this, particularly at the start around the culture, around the people, around the cities, the location.
I felt like those descriptions were rather good.
(21:46):
And then as soon as he got into politics
and
started moaning and bitching,
the essence of his writing, the points
started to diminish and
it became less useful. It became a poor book because of it.
And I do feel like a lot of it was unjustified. And,
(22:08):
yeah, I'm not sure.
That's what he was. For example, he was saying, you know, the Australian wool
is that industry is gonna gonna screw up
because of synthetics and things and like we're not adapting to it and things like this. Whereas if you look now, it's still going strong sixty years later.
He had a lot of shoulds,
(22:29):
the the dreaded should word,
This should happen. We should do this. This needs to happen.
And
I really think he was actually a poor predictor of what would come in the future,
and
that he probably should have just stuck to the descriptional type thing. So
summary here,
I didn't encounter the tirade against Australian privilege that I was expecting.
(22:52):
That's kind of what this book was
presented to me as. You do see it in that in that last kind of chapter. But other than that, it was I felt really good descriptionally at the start and then really poor,
as a opinion piece,
on politics in the second half of the book.
So for all of his criticisms of our lack of innovation,
(23:14):
I think he actually didn't detail
why we were lazy or how we were lazy,
and why we were lucky. I felt it was rather
poor in that sense in getting to the root of of that claim of his
other than him just saying
we we lack intellectuals. That was that was kind of the root of it.
(23:36):
Why innovate? For example, if you are lucky,
it doesn't make sense to me.
The the predictions he was making of
how much we were gonna struggle in the future because of our lack of innovation and things like this,
such as him arguing that we're gonna be engulfed by Asia and we need to adapt tech technologically
(23:57):
and things like this. So overall, I think, is a
pretty terrible predictor,
and history has shown that,
and proved him wrong. A decent writer, okay observationalist,
rather high and mighty, and puts way too much on politics. So the lucky country as a whole, I'm giving it four and a half out of 10.
You know, if you wanna learn about Australian life, sure, particularly in the nineteen sixties, but also today, read the first half. I think you can largely skip everything on politics and then read the final chapter and see if you would agree agree with him or not.
(24:31):
So, yeah, that's, that's the review for today. Let's jump into value for value.
There's a value for value podcast available anytime, anywhere, any place for anyone.
I'm giving all this value to you upfront. All I'm asking is that you return some of it in some shape or form, time, talent and treasure time. Share this with someone,
you know, give it a like, hit the subscribe comment, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(24:55):
I some talent. I wanna know book reviews,
that you think I would enjoy or books that I would enjoy
and that I should do a review on, of course.
So hit me up with any of those social links down below and join our Discord. We're pretty active in there nowadays.
And then finally, some treasure. There's a PayPal link down below. And also, if you go to memodelspodcast.com/support,
(25:16):
got some other ways there of how you can help contribute to the show.
Another thing that would be great is if you join in live like, Juan has here. And
the good thing is I think he's running through some chat g p t or or something because he's putting some of that in the chat. So he's talking about,
just a little bit of a summary here.
And he's saying it's it's frustrating because home hammers,
(25:39):
horn hammers the same point. Australia coast and luck, not skill. His tone is cynical. The writing drags, and it feels like a lecture rather than an engaging critique.
Yeah. That that's probably a pretty good sum up of that. I don't know where Warren got that wrong, but
that is a pretty decent
observation of of this book as a whole.
I forgot to talk about similar books.
(26:02):
You know, I don't really have any similar books
on Australian life. Have I done any before? Like, I've read a whole bunch of Australian books,
you know, something like my brother is it my brother George or my brother Jack,
by
George Johnston? Jack Johnston? I've yeah.
Switching those names up, if you type that in,
(26:23):
my brother Jack, I think it was. George Johnston.
You'll that that gives a fairly good description of Australian life in the,
that was World War Two, I believe that period.
And
yeah, that's that's probably one of the better books to try out instead of this if you want,
Australian life and culture.
So we're going to be doing this live as usual. I will be on Wednesday, 11AM, Australian Eastern Standard Time for the next couple of months and still I start traveling.
(26:51):
Juan says, as he says, he's got some books coming up. I haven't seen him post any. And I
next week, we'll be doing The Gilded Age by Mark Twain. I've got The Price of Interest by Edward Chancellor.
Got The Bilingual Brain,
and Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
I'll probably do book reviews of those, unless they're, like, really crappy.
(27:13):
And yeah. Yeah. Lots of stuff coming up. I hope you enjoyed this episode as usual, and chat for now. Until the next time. Bye. Kyron out.
Unjustified negativity has funny ways of rebounding right back at you.
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Mere Mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 02/19/2025,
(00:21):
'11 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday. Would love if you come join me sometime.
As you might surmise, this is a podcast where I heap wonderful praise on the best country on Earth, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi. You know, in fact, I actually probably will be doing a bit of that today, but our our book for today
certainly is not gonna be because we have the lucky country by Donald Horne. This book was published in 1964,
(00:48):
'2 hundred and '40 '7 pages in length. Took me about five hours of reading to get through. It's not actually that big in in total.
Now this is a rather subjective
snapshot
is,
descriptive, I guess you would call it, turns into opinion
on Australian life in the nineteen sixties. So mister Horn, Donald, he creates a depiction of the average person, of their way of life, of the cities, of the countryside, the type of people within
(01:15):
it, and,
our relation to other countries, especially Asia, but also, you know, our ancestors back in the good old England,
as well as our our brethren in in America.
And I guess the political landscape as a whole, he also dives into quite a lot. He's rather scathing,
when you
(01:36):
take him as a whole, but,
he has some, I I think, some pretty detailed nuances and minutiae where he seems relatively fair and balanced. How many chapters do we have in total here? I'm seeing 10 with titles like the Australian dream, what is an Australian, senses of difference, living with Asia, men at work, men in power, forming opinions, the lucky country, etcetera, etcetera. And these are subdivided into, like, little mini,
(02:01):
areas as well.
So let's jump on to the main themes and questions. How to describe Australia? Do the leaders of a country determine its fate? What is the political landscape in Australia?
Let's just start with the, I guess, the order that the book actually goes in. And so
I feel that the start of this book is a really
(02:22):
good description of Australia.
Not only in that time, I didn't get to experience it, so I can't tell that for sure, but also of Australian life now and Australians now. So
laid back living the dream,
is I guess, the the summary of it. Everybody wants a fair go. They're kind of willing to clap, cut some slack to people who are trying hard,
(02:43):
yet even if they are incompetent,
naive to some extent about the harsher realities
of other people, of other countries, of life there, and and how lucky we actually have it here. I think that's still probably
fair to say.
He tends to have some nice quotes. I've actually noticed this, in the book.
He's got these rather, like, pithy one liners, which I I feel,
(03:05):
work pretty well. So for example, he had one here, which was, hell has been a polish, hell has been abolished as unfair to underdogs, which is this kind of mentality that we have, about loving underdogs,
and and how and the kind of religious nature.
With context to that, he talks about how the only real
(03:26):
area that Australians are competitive in is in sport, which I feel is
pretty well,
still this still true to this day.
A whole lot on the fair go mentality
as contrasted to something like tall poppy syndrome,
which for those who don't know, tall poppies,
some poppies, a type of plant that grows in Australia. And if one grows above the rest, you know, it sometimes get cut. And this is an analogy,
(03:52):
allegory allegory, probably not,
to people who, you know, try and be too cool in Australia. They try and pretend they're better than others, even if they are perhaps are,
and that they'll get cut the knees,
which whilst is a a thing that gets talked about, I actually don't think actually really happens that much on it. We do seem to embody more of this fair go mentality.
(04:14):
The balance of just how he described Australia, the way that we interact with it with each other and things like this, I feel is is pretty good.
After this, he goes,
through the people. He goes through location
and culture. So
he tries to describe the differences between the cities, you know, classic Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth,
(04:35):
and Darwin,
are the main ones. He doesn't really touch upon the states,
per se, and the territories.
Tasmania, Hobart,
adding in there as well. And the thing whilst he does try and create descriptions of them, I think it's a hard thing to do, because Australians are relatively uniform. And here's the sum up at the end, which rings true. Despite extraordinary differences, its people are so much the same.
(05:03):
I feel that's rather the case as well.
And you can even see this within,
some subtle things such as our accents.
If you've been on the mere models conversations before, and I've done one with Pete Smithson,
he is much more of like a Australian history aficionado,
sort of guy and also deeply into languages much like myself. And, he has talked about on there why that there's actually no real differences between the Australian
(05:33):
slang and
and accent between cities. And it's more actually a class based thing. And you'll notice it between people who live in the country versus the city or people who come from a wealthy neighborhood compared to a poorer one.
And so,
you know, I personally wouldn't be able to tell if someone is from a different city just based on their accent. That that is not a thing that happens.
(05:56):
He touches upon many topics of sensitivity with, I think, a fair yet firm touch. So, for example,
religion, the importance that plays and I suppose the lack of importance that even was starting to happen back in his day, the way we work, women's roles in society as well as in the home.
Australia's
treatment of Aborigines, for example, was poor but
(06:19):
not genocidal.
If you compare it to other countries and and how
other colonizers have treated their the native population.
We lack nuance of Australia's diversity, yet admits there is kind of no consensus upon
how Australia,
Australia is
with regards to Asia and the Asian countries immigration.
(06:41):
All of these topics, I feel
he not only describes how it was, but also his opinions on them. And it and it seemed reasonable. He just seemed like a reasonable guy when it came to all of those things.
Then we jump into, I suppose, the more subjective opinion.
And so I would have said the the whole start was pretty descriptional. And you've got a fair idea of that. I'm an Australian.
(07:05):
I'm kind of embody it. If you listen to one as well, I feel like, you know, you just listen to a bit of us and you'll get a bit of an idea of what Australians are like.
Here I am literally with my, you know, scarf on my head,
looking like a fool and not taking a book review too seriously. I feel like that's pretty, indicative of how Australians are.
(07:27):
His subjective opinion,
gets into, I suppose, sketchy areas,
which are much more
how he viewed the world. And when it comes to politics,
people lose their fucking mind and say stupid things or they get very fired up and
lose perhaps some of the nuance that they have when it comes to more descriptional things that they don't have
(07:51):
a a part in or have no, you know, what's the differences between Brisbane and Adelaide? You know, there's no anger, there's no emotion, there's no feelings contained within that. You can be a bit more objective.
Yet when it gets into politics, you know, people just lose their mind.
And politics was a lot on his mind. He complains a lot, and it's hard to know whether if it was valid or not.
(08:13):
You know? Because if when you're complaining about a politician,
are you complaining about them and the way they're running their the country?
Do do their actions actually have that much import on this on the on the way a country actually
is run? Or are they more a sentiment and an indication of what the country at large is kind of feeling?
(08:34):
And they're just an an embodiment of that, for example. So
for example, a couple of things he was saying,
statements that were lacking behind other
industrialized nations in GNP. I guess that was gross natural,
gross
natural product. So, national gross national,
product. Nowadays, I think we say GDP, gross domestic product,
(08:59):
and that these the amount spent on education
or the two teacher to student ratio is too low. So making very, you know, policy decisions saying this is wrong. We need to fix this, and this is why Australia is
not going to do good or things like this. These I can all understand,
but the general moping
is,
(09:22):
I don't know, of of how people are of
there's
he it's it's weird because he's he's complaining about one on one hand, he's saying it's the lucky country. Australia is really good in certain regards where
we've we've actually, you know, our standard of living is really great,
(09:43):
especially when you compare it to, Asia.
And I'll get on to why he says it's we kind of don't deserve it shortly.
But then at the same time, he's complaining that the politicians are doing all these bad things, and it's like, well, which one is it? Is it are we are we doing well? Are we not doing well? I guess you could argue that he was saying we're not going to do well. And he kind of has a little bit of this within the book.
(10:09):
And I think this is where you can actually see that he was rather wrong because our standard of living is
certainly better than it was back then.
You know, people
have access to amenities and things that don't exist
back in that time. And we're still a rather prosperous nation. And, I I think he would have predicted that we wouldn't be unless
(10:32):
the radical changes or perhaps even were they radical changes that he was advocating for? Nah. Not not particularly. But the changes that he was advocating for, I would say, probably haven't come true, yet we're still rather prosperous. So,
he also talked a lot about communists, unionists,
not in a positive light. There was just many sections in this book where he was talking about
(10:55):
random,
Australian stuff. Menzies,
the Menzies government, the Menzies prime minister,
was certainly on his mind a lot as well. So
the thing that I really noticed within this was
he had this
there was this inkling, this undertone of wishing for an ivory tower,
and a strong leader to appear. And this is despite him already saying that Australians
(11:21):
are well represented of,
role well represented
represented? Jesus. I'm adding extra ads on politically per capita as in we have more politicians
than
other countries do, which
me personally, I I don't think that's a great thing, but,
per capita, but whatever.
He some of the other things he describes as a backwater without
(11:44):
intellectuals have only started to see some men of will,
who could shape the world as in these men who
he he would was sort of saying, like, they have the drive to change things. They have the drive to,
you know, innovate, to become powerful, to,
to change the world, I guess, in an essence. And,
(12:05):
I think all of this culminates in his famous paragraph, which we find in the in the last chapter here. So if you bear with me,
and it's it's rather scathing, scathing. And it's funny, this this paragraph,
I'll read it, and then I'll I'll I'll talk about something about it. So the lucky country living on our luck.
Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on the other people's ideas. And although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders in all fields so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise. A nation more concerned with styles of life than with achievement has managed to achieve what may be the most evenly prosperous society in the world. It has done this in a social climate largely inimical to originality
(12:52):
and the desire for excellence, acceptance, sport, and in which there is less and less acclimation of hard work. According to the rules, Australia has not deserved its good fortune.
Particularly that first line there, you might be thinking like, Jesus, he's just calling out the whole country.
And it's hard to
exactly pass it. Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. Now, is he talking specifically about the leaders there? I Australia is run the people who are running it a second rate?
(13:23):
Or is he talking about that the Australians as a whole a second rate? It's kinda hard to to pass that between those two.
What he argues in the book is that we don't deserve it. He actually doesn't talk much about the natural resources in terms of that being our luck, which
I think would probably be
if you'd look at the last sixty years, you know, we didn't experience
(13:46):
a recession during the GFC, I don't believe,
because we
basically just mined enough ore and coal,
iron ore to
to,
you know, paper over any any problems that would have happened to us had we been another country.
And certainly our resources is what has,
(14:08):
what we're kind of known for. You know, we've got a ridiculous amount of mining. I'm personally
am a mining engineer or used to be used to work in that. So,
but he doesn't talk about that much in the book. He just talks about that
we
aren't innovative. We don't create things.
And yet somehow we've managed to
(14:29):
create a society where people can go by the beach, where they don't have to work ninety hour work weeks, where
you can be incompetent. And yet as long as you're trying, you'll still get a fair go and a fair shake of it and these sorts of things.
I love this part about the stealing and innovation and, that we're just stealing ideas from other countries. We were literally China before China. You're welcome, China. We we invented that playbook, LOL.
(14:56):
So
I guess to sum up this, are politicians and leaders important? Do they run the country? Are they the ones who actually impact things?
Here here once again is my opinion.
No, I don't think so. And
to
kind of prove this in a sense,
being political here is an option.
(15:17):
We don't wear party hats.
We don't if you see signage outside of a person's house when it's coming up to an election day or something like that,
it's
it's
more mostly based on the party, not on the person itself,
or it'll be for local sorry. It'll be for more like a local MP
(15:38):
rather than on the party itself. You know, vote for this guy rather than vote for the party. We've got those backs, switched back.
It's not a topic that is forced upon you. You can choose to not get involved and you won't face social repercussions for this. I actually met someone recently who she says that whenever she,
a political discussion comes up and,
(16:00):
and someone asked her opinion or something, she'll just be like, I like kittens,
which I which I think is actually a pretty good
response. I might steal that.
When we have elections, they are not a set in stone date like the American ones where it's a big hullabaloo and, you know,
a big lead up a media event to it.
(16:21):
I personally have
gone many years without knowing who the prime minister is. I actually got it wrong recently when I looked it up because I thought it was an older one and it's actually a different one.
It reminds me of an disagreement I had with an Argentinian woman once
here in Australia,
and she thought I was being reckless
for not giving a fuck about politics here. You know, I was I was pretty much expressing this opinion. You don't need to know about it. It doesn't really matter.
(16:49):
You know,
it's the differences between voting for this person or this person. It's
it's largely irrelevant.
And her argument was that, you know, giving a giving a fuck was important. Otherwise, it would turn into something like her country is.
And if you don't know Argentina,
notorious
for
(17:09):
the poor politicians, the bribery scandals,
shout out to President Malay, who just,
is
being investigated for fraud for promoting a meme coin in the last couple of days. So, you know, nothing has changed. Don't trust politicians. You know, all the all the standard things that I've been saying for years.
(17:30):
And
my, you know, counter response to that is, you know, if giving a fuck is
really working well, you know, does it actually matter? Has it improved your political system? I would say no. And
probably that I win the argument by default because she was trying to immigrate to my country
and I wasn't trying to immigrate to hers. So,
(17:51):
you know, as far as I can tell,
they don't really do much here. Politicians
that the
perhaps because we don't attach to them a whole lot of weight as a whole. You know, no one's looking towards the Australian prime minister and is like, what's he going to do about tariffs? So what's he going to do about this? Or if they are, it's a certain subset. And it's
(18:14):
it's just not a huge thing. Politics,
I think rightly so, should be a
secondary consideration and that
decisions in your own life are much more important than whatever other people
are dictating in elsewhere.
Plenty of people who would argue against me off this, I know, but this is my opinion and there it is. So, let's jump into the author, perhaps some extra details. You know, did I answer, I guess, the initial question of,
(18:42):
do the leaders of a country determine its fate?
I feel in Australia, it's it's more that
they are an indication or the sentiment of what perhaps people as a whole are feeling and
that,
no, they don't they don't really determine its fate.
My personal opinion there. Let's remember the author. Extra details. Mister Horne is a journalist, writer, social critic and academic.
(19:05):
The public intellectual.
Perhaps he wouldn't have described himself this way. I believe he passed away in the last decade or two.
But if it does get applied to you,
then it's probably just.
And it does explain his moaning about intellectual life as I don't think he got the props that he thought he deserved.
(19:27):
I I feel that I got a strong feeling from that. He was moaning about the lack of public intellectual life in Australia that were not well read that were, you know,
lacking in ideas and creativity and things like this.
I think a lot of that was just because he believes he was,
and that he wasn't getting this.
(19:47):
To back up this claim,
he wrote three to five autobiographies.
Fucking five.
Three, I think, kind of really centered upon himself, maybe five in in total.
Now, apparently, they're not all me, me, me,
but, I mean, three is rather excessive. If you can't find a way of writing about
(20:09):
a topic without using yourself in it as a as a central figure and just three
to five autobiography. So that gives this necessary.
I think that was kind of an indication of him himself.
And he seemed like a man who also
didn't know exactly what he wanted because he did go to live in England for a while. And apparently
(20:31):
there, you know, even though the public and intellectual life should be rather stimulating,
it it he wasn't enjoying it there probably once again because he didn't make a name for himself there. Now the lucky country, there's getting to the very first thing I was saying, has actually become a term of endearment for Australia. And it's used in a good sense
(20:51):
as in, you know, we are the lucky country. We are
Australia is a great place to be.
Whereas in the way that he used it, and particularly in that final sentence, it was meant to be an insult. You know, it's a lucky country. You you don't deserve what you got here.
And that,
that could change and that everything could turn bad and you should listen to heed my warning sort of deal. And, apparently, this caused a lot of consternation for him. A quote here. I've had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase. And this was, of course because
(21:26):
he he probably said that, in the early two thousands.
I can only feel this is calmer, to be honest. I feel the descriptions in this book were rather accurate,
as he was writing it at this, particularly at the start around the culture, around the people, around the cities, the location.
I felt like those descriptions were rather good.
(21:46):
And then as soon as he got into politics
and
started moaning and bitching,
the essence of his writing, the points
started to diminish and
it became less useful. It became a poor book because of it.
And I do feel like a lot of it was unjustified. And,
(22:08):
yeah, I'm not sure.
That's what he was. For example, he was saying, you know, the Australian wool
is that industry is gonna gonna screw up
because of synthetics and things and like we're not adapting to it and things like this. Whereas if you look now, it's still going strong sixty years later.
He had a lot of shoulds,
(22:29):
the the dreaded should word,
This should happen. We should do this. This needs to happen.
And
I really think he was actually a poor predictor of what would come in the future,
and
that he probably should have just stuck to the descriptional type thing. So
summary here,
I didn't encounter the tirade against Australian privilege that I was expecting.
(22:52):
That's kind of what this book was
presented to me as. You do see it in that in that last kind of chapter. But other than that, it was I felt really good descriptionally at the start and then really poor,
as a opinion piece,
on politics in the second half of the book.
So for all of his criticisms of our lack of innovation,
(23:14):
I think he actually didn't detail
why we were lazy or how we were lazy,
and why we were lucky. I felt it was rather
poor in that sense in getting to the root of of that claim of his
other than him just saying
we we lack intellectuals. That was that was kind of the root of it.
(23:36):
Why innovate? For example, if you are lucky,
it doesn't make sense to me.
The the predictions he was making of
how much we were gonna struggle in the future because of our lack of innovation and things like this,
such as him arguing that we're gonna be engulfed by Asia and we need to adapt tech technologically
(23:57):
and things like this. So overall, I think, is a
pretty terrible predictor,
and history has shown that,
and proved him wrong. A decent writer, okay observationalist,
rather high and mighty, and puts way too much on politics. So the lucky country as a whole, I'm giving it four and a half out of 10.
You know, if you wanna learn about Australian life, sure, particularly in the nineteen sixties, but also today, read the first half. I think you can largely skip everything on politics and then read the final chapter and see if you would agree agree with him or not.
(24:31):
So, yeah, that's, that's the review for today. Let's jump into value for value.
There's a value for value podcast available anytime, anywhere, any place for anyone.
I'm giving all this value to you upfront. All I'm asking is that you return some of it in some shape or form, time, talent and treasure time. Share this with someone,
you know, give it a like, hit the subscribe comment, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(24:55):
I some talent. I wanna know book reviews,
that you think I would enjoy or books that I would enjoy
and that I should do a review on, of course.
So hit me up with any of those social links down below and join our Discord. We're pretty active in there nowadays.
And then finally, some treasure. There's a PayPal link down below. And also, if you go to memodelspodcast.com/support,
(25:16):
got some other ways there of how you can help contribute to the show.
Another thing that would be great is if you join in live like, Juan has here. And
the good thing is I think he's running through some chat g p t or or something because he's putting some of that in the chat. So he's talking about,
just a little bit of a summary here.
And he's saying it's it's frustrating because home hammers,
(25:39):
horn hammers the same point. Australia coast and luck, not skill. His tone is cynical. The writing drags, and it feels like a lecture rather than an engaging critique.
Yeah. That that's probably a pretty good sum up of that. I don't know where Warren got that wrong, but
that is a pretty decent
observation of of this book as a whole.
I forgot to talk about similar books.
(26:02):
You know, I don't really have any similar books
on Australian life. Have I done any before? Like, I've read a whole bunch of Australian books,
you know, something like my brother is it my brother George or my brother Jack,
by
George Johnston? Jack Johnston? I've yeah.
Switching those names up, if you type that in,
(26:23):
my brother Jack, I think it was. George Johnston.
You'll that that gives a fairly good description of Australian life in the,
that was World War Two, I believe that period.
And
yeah, that's that's probably one of the better books to try out instead of this if you want,
Australian life and culture.
So we're going to be doing this live as usual. I will be on Wednesday, 11AM, Australian Eastern Standard Time for the next couple of months and still I start traveling.
(26:51):
Juan says, as he says, he's got some books coming up. I haven't seen him post any. And I
next week, we'll be doing The Gilded Age by Mark Twain. I've got The Price of Interest by Edward Chancellor.
Got The Bilingual Brain,
and Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
I'll probably do book reviews of those, unless they're, like, really crappy.
(27:13):
And yeah. Yeah. Lots of stuff coming up. I hope you enjoyed this episode as usual, and chat for now. Until the next time. Bye. Kyron out.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com